Putin, Le Pen hold surprise meeting in Moscow

French far-right leader and Presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen met with Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Friday morning during her Moscow trip.

The deputy dean of the Faculty of Global Economics and International Affairs of the Higher School of Economics of the National Research University, Andrei Suzdaltsev, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, said that Le Pen's visit shows that Russian Federation is an important factor in the internal political life of the European Union in general and France in particular.

Le Pen's visit comes weeks before the first round of French presidential elections on April 23, although the right-wing leader said her visit had nothing to do with attracting votes.

Le Pen also called for closer ties between France and Russian Federation, adding that the two countries should increase their cooperation in the fight against terrorism.

She made the unsubstantiated claim that Ukrainian soldiers were targeting civilians in Russia-occupied parts of eastern Ukraine in what she called "a war crime".

Referring to Russia's role in Syria and France's fight against Islamic extremists, she called on the two countries to work together to fight "terrorism". "I favor Russia's proper participation in the fight against terrorism", Sputnik cited Le Pen as saying. But the French populace's concerns over immigration and security - combined with a rebranding effort that included putting her father out to pasture - has seen Le Pen rally voters.

Nevertheless, according to the political scientist, Le Pen's visit to Russian Federation can cause a mixed reaction among the French society.

Hard times for Sears as retailer notes doubt about future
It operates approximately 940 Kmart stores across over 50 states, Guam, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink.

Outlook and XBox services experience further outages
According to several reports, Microsoft's online services have been suffering through some pretty major outages this morning. Xbox Live , OneDrive, Outlook.com, Skype, Azure and the Windows Store have all had issues letting users log into accounts.

"We have seen how intensively they have played the Russian theme in the USA presidential campaign, and we now can see Le Pen's rivals trying to exploit this theme in the French campaign", she said.

But given her anti-immigrant views and record of defending French colonialism in Africa, the visit didn't go down well with Chadians.

Once considered the front-runner in the French race, conservative candidate Francois Fillon has fallen behind Le Pen and Macron after facing preliminary charges in a probe of taxpayer-funded jobs his wife and children received but allegedly never performed.

Kasyanov told EUobserver that Putin was helping Le Pen, and others like her, such as the German anti-EU and far-right politician Frauke Petry, in order to "divide and weaken" the EU.

The French presidential election is followed by parliamentary elections in June.

In an interview past year with CNN, Le Pen said she was left with no choice after French banks turned her down. "His foreign policy will be based on this", Kasyanov said.

RELATED NEWS

Super Mario Run Heading Out To Android Within Days
Yet [Super Mario Run] was less of a moneymaker for Nintendo than might have been expected, due to the pay-once-and-play model. The game lets players test out the first world before being required to pay $9.99 to unlock the rest. 3/25/2017

Slain London cop Keith Palmer was a husband and father
Labour MP Barry Gardiner was also caught up in the lockdown and posted a picture of armed police moving through parliament . A total of five people - including the perpetrator - died and around 40 others were injured in the horrific attack. 3/24/2017

Google's search app adds shortcuts to its popular tools
As of now this is only a guess that Google might be bringing forward the support for more themes with the gen-next Android OS. Fortunately, Google made a decision to confirm the rumors and released the developer preview of Android 8.0 O. 3/24/2017

Manhunt intensifies for missing Tenn. Teacher, student
Investigators also tell CBS News that Cummins appears to have been planning this for some time by watching survivalist shows. The photo was captured in January, just days before Cummins' alleged inappropriate contact with Thomas, TBI announced. 3/23/2017

Google pledges tighter curbs in hate video row
Although Google has "strict policies that define where Google ads should appear...at times we don't get it right". The inappropriate contents include videos from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke , the report stated. 3/22/2017